I'm a really heavy guy. I didn't think it mattered, I'd justify it to myself as "It's a filter, to keep away superficial people" or something, but growing up first impressions are formed by appearance; it's a fact, that's the way it is. And I'd like to start changing my appearance and become healthier. But I have no idea what to do.

I read through the FAQ.

Weight, Height, Sex, and Age

Your Goals (weight loss, muscle, etc)

Any injuries or disorders that we should know about? (Diabetes, broken ankle, etc)

Do you smoke? (If yes, stop. Stop now.)

History of diet or exercise (What have you tried? What worked? What didn't?)

I want to lose all of this fat. Gaining muscle would be a bonus, if they can be done at the same time as the FAQ says. I'm good at hiding the fat under my black shirts and darker clothing; I'm enormous, I have more skin with stretch marks than skin without, basically.

No physical injuries. However I've been in denial, and don't want to go to the doctors, but I think I may have diabetes, and it wouldn't surprise me. I'm tired 100% of the time, weigh over twice what my friends weigh, and I pee a lot, and need the sugar. I will go soon enough, I've decided to get healthy.

None whatsoever. I gorge myself on fatty foods everyday, it's time I want to change. If I had to give my average daily meal, I'd say for breakfast I have 4 slices of white toast with peanut butter spread and probably soft drink to drink, if no soft drink apple and blackcurrant juice. Between breakfast and lunch I'd have walked from the station to Uni and be really tired, so I'd get a milk drink and a chocolate bar. For lunch, another milk drink, with a nutella sandwich, a sandwich with chicken probably, or bung fritz, along with a packet of chips, a milo/nutrigrain bar. For dinner I'd have whatever the family haves, which can range from anywhere from chicken to roast pork or lamb, schnitzels, various pastas, enchiladas, burgers (homemade), normally all served with potato chips or potato gems.

Yes. I live somewhat rural, but there's a gym ~15km away that I can drive to quite easily.

Basically University is finishing up in 2 weeks, exams will be over. My physics and mathematics mind will be free to gorge on video games and food for 4 months like every summer holidays is; but I don't want that this time.

I want to look good.

My main questions and concerns are I'd say:

How much should I exercise? Every day? Is that too much for starting out?

What should I exercise for fat-burning and some muscle gain? Treadmil? The bars with the weights on the end? I really am lost.

What do I eat? This one is the hardest part for me. I'm willing to put in the physical effort associated with going to the gym, but my tastebuds have different ideas. I cannot physically eat lettuce/tomato/carrots basically any and all vegetables, my mouth just cannot stomach the texture and the taste, it's abhorrent. I want to eat it, but I can't, my mind and tastebuds are somehow still in 10 year old chicken nugget mode. How do I break free? Do I NEED to eat lettuce/tomato and all of the vegetables? What is keto? Will that be better for a larger person like myself?

Any, literally any help or guidance at all would be hugely appreciated. If I'm posting in the wrong place, I apologise immensely, and will remove the post, or go somewhere else or something; I don't know.

EDIT 2: Wow, 50 replies in just over an hour! I can't believe the response. Thank you all, SO much. My first step without a doubt is to get on the water train, see a doctor about my lethargy and weight, and start walking/jogging around the neighbourhood for 30-60 minutes everyday, or every odd day, depending on how my knees will take the news at first. Thank you all so much, it means a lot to have people giving me advice on the matter, I really am lost and new to this. Comin' up 3am here in Australia, I think it's best I sleep soon. Thank you all so much again, it means so much.

EDIT 3: Morning. What the what!? 400 replies!? This is beyond comprehensible. Thank you all so much, it means a lot. I'm having breakfast at the moment, less of what I normally have, with water, no more sugar drinks. I can't believe how much attention this has got, amazing. Thanks to all the people who've sent PM's, thanks to everyone who's commented. This is really great, thank you so much.

IF YOU THINK THERE IS A CHANCE YOU MIGHT BE DIABETIC, SEE A DOCTOR ABOUT THIS PRONTO MAN!! Starting a new diet and training regimen with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes can be extremely detrimental to your health and can also negatively affect your progress. (Consistenly high blood sugar makes your body catabolic, which means you are losing muscle). I lost just over 10 pounds of muscle in under 3 weeks when I was became type 1 diabetic at 15 y/o and I was eating and drinking constantly!

You'll need to incorporate some cardio in your routine, but gaining muscle will also help you burn more calories and increase your BMR, so you definitely need to add in some resistance training. You'll also need to ease your body into this. Nothing wrong with doing cardio every day, but lifting weights everyday might be very taxing on your body and nervous system at first, you'll need to progress to a regular and consistent training regimen so your body can get used to the hard work.

Best of luck, lots of info available on this subreddit

edit: fixed regimen (not regiment), thanks for pointing that out /u/Estrapade. Also added 1 brief line

Not saying he shouldn't see a doctor, but OP probably has type 2 diabetes if anything, and it's pretty different compared to type 1. Ketoacidosis is very rare with type 2 diabetes, and it's caused by a systemic resistance to insulin rather than a complete or near-complete lack of it. The insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes improves with exercise, while the insulin release in type 1 is completely unaffected by exercise. Basically I could go on forever with this, but I just wanted to say that they're not the same disease at all.

It always surprises me how unwilling people on reddit are to see a doctor when they have obvious health issues. Is this maybe an American thing, do a lot of people have to pay per visit? Where I live GP visits are free (if inconvenient).

Even with insurance, most of us in the USA still have deductibles or co-payments.

I once went to a local clinic (not covered by my insurance) just to get a prescription for Tamiflu (which you need to take at the first sign of symptoms, and my doctor always has 2-3 week appointment minimum). It was $90 just to have the doctor do a quick 3 minute exam to OK the prescription.

I dunno if it's changed at all recently under the ACA or anything, but anything other than a routine check-up with no complications can cause your premiums to skyrocket, or get you kicked off your plan, or blacklisted from receiving certain treatments, or a million other little things like that.

Unless you are positive that the only thing stopping you from dying is going to the doctor, it is in your best interest to avoid them completely, lest you risk permanently getting yourself barred from medical treatment, basically.

Here's the absolute most important thing: make changes slowly, that you can live with forever. If you start some crazy thing that takes every ounce of effort and will you have, sooner or later you will crash and burn and be back where you started. Your goal is to build a new lifestyle permanently, and that doesn't happen overnight.

First thing I would do for diet is replace all drinks with water - all of them. For exercise, try to walk every day for 30-60 minutes. This might be hard - take breathers when you need to, but get the time in. When you're no longer craving soda and when you can walk 60 minutes no problem, it will be time to take the next steps.

If you are feeling really on top of things and like you want to do more (i don't advise this to start) you can cut all sugary things from your diet and start doing pushups and squats. Start with wall pushups, then knee pushups until you can do regular pushups. Just start with bodyweight squats as deep as you can comfortably go, and slowly try to improve your depth. I would do these 3 days/wk.

I want to emphasize again that the way most people fail is by overdoing it, getting overwhelmed, and giving up. Build slow, steady, sustainable progress and you can make a permanent improvement in your life.

Really want to add on to this, from someone who is overweight and has had success using the slow change method.

I have tried many diets-fad diets, and non-fad diets alike. Tried going paleo for a month (succeeded-and learned a ton about food), but it didn't have the impact you would hope for. Forcing yourself through a month of sudden change to your diet is very, very difficult-and afterwards you feel worn out and not motivated to keep going.

Since then, I've decided to do a week by week change, with each week building on the last. Week one was walking everyday-not for any set amount of time, but just walking. No, I wasn't walking fast, I wasn't measuring my weight everyday-but just walking. I did this every day except for one that week (a rest day).

Week two involved drinking water (and unsweetened tea) ONLY ON WEEKDAYS and continue the habit formed in week one. Why only weekdays? Because I love soda and beer, and on the weekends when I have fun I like to enjoy myself. Had I decided to cut it out all together, it would've been too sudden a change and would set me up for failure. If you can make a change more manageable, do it.

Week three involved setting a sleep schedule, while still drinking water only and walking everyday. Sleep is extremely important for your diet and exercise, for reasons most know-but most importantly, when you're tired you're more likely to wake up later, to move slower, to eat sugary foods with no nutritional benefit, and drink too much caffeine.

Now for week four you can add on whatever you want-I decided to add more to the exercise habit, but you can focus on portion control, or adding a veggie to every meal, or focus on one meal a day and make it healthier (i.e. healthy breakfasts all week).

Make it easy to succeed and build on it. Small, sustainable change. If you can break it up, break it up but also remember you have a plan to improve week to week. This way you won't plateau quickly and your body will adjust.

Thanks for this. I'm 325 and have been near obsessed with getting healthy and fit for 13 years now. A few years ago I gave up on that and have just accepted my eating and drinking, and of course the weight keeps going up.

What I've always done in the past is to change overnight and what you said about that is 100% true. This would put me in such a state where I couldn't think, work, or do anything. I would be MISERABLE. That wouldn't last long of course.

I like that you say walk daily and cut sugary drinks out M-F only, because I love beer too. I think my week one will be walking for 30m a day, then cutting anything liquid with calories and going from there. I think this will be totally doable vs. the overnight massive changes I've done in the past.

Gradual change in definitely the way to go. I've always wanted to bulk up and many times would do really well for a week or maybe a few months at my best but then always just quit altogether because it was just too difficult. I read a blog posting on zenhabits.net (sorry, can't find the original posting) about forming lasting habits by making ridiculously small changes at a time and only slowly building onto them. The idea is that "exercising" or "getting fit" isn't one habit, it's a million of 'em. And the only way to make it stick is by recognizing each individual one and taking them on one by one.

My first habit was GOING to the gym. If I swiped my membership card, I was allowed to leave for the day, no guilt, even if I didn't do anything. Sometimes I'd do a little exercise, sometimes I'd just play basketball for 10 minutes and leave. One day I swiped, did 5 minutes of bench presses and left, which was fine. In fact, I promised myself that if I wanted to I could swipe my membership and turn around and walk right back to my car and leave.

After about a month my next habit was going to the gym AND doing something. Didn't have to be anything in particular, but it had to be exercise. That's where I'm still at right now.

In the future I plan to extend on this to exercising for a set amount of time and maybe devoting certain days to working certain muscle groups. I'm going as slowly as I can because I want this to be a lifestyle change. So far it's going very well. I wish you the best of luck!

These are great points. I was thinking about that too, to where as a first step, I could just put my shoes on and go to the gym and then be done (we have a really nice one at the apartment complex here, which I've used twice in the past year!). Getting there seems to be the hardest part, even though it's a maybe half a block away.

These are great points and helpful for me because I have struggled with all or nothing thinking in the past. This isn't working obviously.

This is crucial, coming from a crack addict. You can fall down. You can duck up. You can destroy every friendship you have. You can make your own family hate you. What you cannot do is accept who you are today. No matter how many times you don't succeed in changing you must not give up on the idea that it is possible. Fortunately for you, I am here as proof that it is absolutely possible to change who you are.

Don't be afraid to go slowly, when I first decided to cut down on liquid calories my first change was not drinking soda with lunch. That's all. After that stuck I included more and more times I didn't drink soda, at my own pace. It's been over a decade, and now I drink it less than once a month and weigh twenty pounds less than when I started the change (while being an inch taller, I was 16 when I started). Slow and steady wins the race!

I agree, no matter what lifestyle you lead this information seriously helps. I just realized why I failed my body transformation after doing so well. It was too much of a change and I got tired of it so I turned back to sitting and drinking.. thank you guys for this information.

The reason this works so well us because you're making habits. Habits are what your brain falls back on when life gets complicated/hard and requires more willpower than normal. If you can get your brain and body used to making healthy choices, they won't even have to make those choices eventually because that'll be the default.

There are times when I eat out and plan to order hot chocolate or a soda, but when the server asks for my order, 99% of the time I'll accidentally forget about the plan and order water because it's what I always do. I never thought I could stop buying bread and pasta at the store, but I never buy it because it's a habit now. I favor meat-and-veggie dishes now whereas in the past I ate a ton of pasta and sandwiches.

Habits are a powerful thing, and if you just focus on 1 or 2 at a time, it's amazing what you can accomplish without feeling overwhelmed.

What I do now for example, is carbs only on the weekend (friday night to sunday night). It is something that I can live with for the rest of my life. I need a plan, but a simple one, simple to follow. So I found this one, because I know that I would be miserable without carbs for the rest of my life and each cheat would turn into a week long cheat.

If you want encouragement to walk for 30-60 minutes every day, I would recommend getting an mp3 player and putting at least 60 minutes of your FAVRORITE songs on it. And then go walk in the park, thinking, and listening to your faverote music. I don't know why but it can be the more enjoyable part of the day. After 5-10 songs you can go back.

To add on to this, podcasts are great too. They're usually about an hour and most are engaging enough to take your mind off of whatever you're doing. I can't tell if your native language is English, but if it is, How Did This Get Made is a great podcast to start with.

Oh yeah, podcasts are the best. I can't read while I do cardio or lift, but I'll put on Star Talk or Stuff You Missed in History Class. I'm able to learn while I improve my health at the same time! It's a win-win.

On a related note, if you have a dog or have access to a dog, take the dog with you! In fact, a while back I needed motivation to get out for 30 to 60 minutes a day so I put an ad on Craigslist advertising myself as a dog walker. I got a response and suddenly I was getting paid to exercise, which is even better!

Walking is going to be the easiest way to ease into working out. I used to have a pedometer and tried to get in 5,000 steps a day.

If you are into tracking your progress, fitbit has a number of devices that will track your steps, calories burned, and distance walked. You can also compete with friends on fitbit to earn achievements.

The good thing is that you are making a change while you are YOUNG and not later in life. Keep us updated on your progress!

Just want to underline the recommendation of /u/Kaltoro. A "stepcounter"/Pedometer is great, gives you a feeling of accomplishment when at the end of the day you notice that instead of driving to the shop walking there really paid off. Set yourself a goal, maybe sign up on one of these 10000steps sites (http://www.10000steps.org.au/index/login/ I think that's the site but not 100% sure) or just use a notebook/excel sheet but keep track of your daily steps, it's very motivating.

On weekends take a nice walk with a little scenery, depends on where you live but both hiking in nature or walking through your local downtown can be nice. Just keep in mind to not over do it, no need to be totally excused in the middle of no where. You are going for regular activity in the beginning not to break some records.

Nutrition tracking apps also help a lot. Even if you don't use it every day, seeing how much of your daily calories that bottle of mountain dew takes up is important. You might not be recording every meal, but you'll at least pay more attention to your food. Daily Burn Tracker is one I used, breaks down how much of each macronutrient you're getting and some other stuff as well.

I can vouch for this. I used to usually drink fruit juices and sodas, with hardly any water at all. I felt tired a lot because of it. I then made the switch from fruit juices and sodas to diet iced teas and diet sodas, and then eventually to water. Now that I drink it a lot, water actually tastes good, and I feel a lot better. I now drink mostly water (even at restaurants or other events), with maybe a glass or two of diet iced tea every day, and maybe a diet soda every few weeks or so. I feel a lot better now.

Yup, seconded. After a while of completely cutting out sweet drinks, water starts to taste awesome and when you have another soda after a long time I found I was almost disgusted with how sweet it was.

Yeah, after I got used to drinking water it's really the only thing that can quench my thirst. I don't really like soda anymore, except in a few specific situations (like root beer with pizza sometimes).

That's fine. I was trying to keep the suggestions as simple as possible, because the more complicated things get, the harder it is to follow through.

Unsweetened tea is fine, and we could get into a milk discussion too (yes/no/skim/whole/etc) once everything is on track and moving solidly in the right direction, but at the beginning keeping things simple is golden.

Also, the more water you drink, the more you will crave just plain water over anything else when you are thirsty. Honestly. I dont even like soda anymore.

I'd also recommend getting a Brita or something. You will be so much more likely to reach for water if you have cold, nice tasting water just waiting for you in the fridge. Get a nice reusable water bottle you can bring with you everywhere too.

Wow, this is interesting. At home, we never had sodas (my parents are both surgeons so there are some things that they had us do) so I grew up on the mostly water thing. I still drink water in preference to anything but damn if fruit juice isn't absolutely delicious. Even the soft drinks taste real good. I mean, I go back to plain water out of sheer habit, but I've never noticed this about water tasting good (except when I'm totally parched, when anything would taste good).

However, everyone is saying the same thing here so it's interesting to me.

I'm only saying this because I don't want people to try the switch and then find themselves terribly disappointed because they don't get the 'water is delicious' feeling causing them to go back to their old thing. Maybe you're like me.

Unsweetended tea doesn't contain any calories so sure, go ahead. Some people feel that green tea is increasing appetite (including me) so you probably want to be careful with that if you are trying to lose weight.

I'm not hugely into plain water either. Tea is totally fine! If you're concerned about caffeine intake (which I am), stick to herbal teas. Iced tea is usually made with black tea, which comes from the same plant as white and green tea, and all contain caffeine. There are tons and tons of herbal ones out there though, most of which have incidental medicinal effects, which is also handy!

I find that adding some fruit to water makes it a lot easier to drink and adds more dimension to it. My favourite combos include: lemon + orange, lemon + cucumber, strawberry + orange, or sometimes I just throw in a sprig of mint. Especially when it's chilled, I can just keep drinking glasses and glasses of the fruit-infused water because it's so tasty and fresh!

Yes to tea! Small girl with a tea addiction here who goes straight to tea for hydration and flavor if not actually hungry. Seriously, if you love food and are the type of person who could go nuts discovering different types of cheese, you're also probably the kind of person who would enjoy the complicated world of tea.

Want sweet things? I have a coconut Pouchong that smells like macaroons and a rooibos that smells like an almond tea cake. Then there's the weird world of puerh, the awesomeness of oolongs and Tieguanyins (!!!), white teas and rolled jasmine pearls, flower teas, herbal tisanes, etc. I even have a Korean rose tisane that's literally dried pink rosebuds and a Hao Ya A Keemun that smells like the last bit of a fragrant rose before it dies. SO HELPFUL if you're looking to transfer a love of tastes and sensory pleasure onto something that's good for you, won't hurt your calorie count and hydrates you.

Just be a little careful of your bank account. Because of /r/tea, I've just bought three gaiwans and a few seriously expensive yixing pots are on my wish list. (It's better than buying cake!)

Unsweetened tea is fine. Black coffee is probably ok, too. I would still recommend trying to sneak some water in there, though. Maybe during/immediately after exercise.

As someone who basically didn't drink water growing up, you would be surprised how much you can come to enjoy the taste after quitting soda. Also, it was hard to get the water I needed from coffee or tea.

That said, don't force the change too much. Going from soda to tea will be a big change if you habitually drink enough.

First thing was cut soda and replace it for water and no-sugar lemonade with mineral water (most people might not handle it but I love the stuff). this alone made me lose 12kg /25 lbs

Then I cut down everything that contained sugar (except fruits, which I don't eat a lot anyway) and started /r/c25k and lifting 3 days a week (lots of reps, high intensity). After a month I cut crap food and avoid going out for eating unless its a good restaurant. I control my portions, I eat a lot more of.vegetables instead bread, tortilla, pasta. Lowered my calorie intake with.the help of myfitnesspal.

All in all, I started this in June and was 6ft 255lbs down to 175 lbs right now.

Dream goals are great and necessary, but they don't mean anything when it comes down to the day-to-day.

Motivating yourself can be hard as hell. It's so much easier to say you're too tired or you'll do it tomorrow. But if saying, "I'm going to take a 10 minute walk" is the only way you can motivate yourself to put on your shoes and go for a walk, do that.

You'll find that once you start on the ten minute walk, it's much easier to just keep going. Getting started is the rough part.

Now I carry a 1 L refillable CamelBak wherever I go and it works great for me. It took ~6 months to get here, so don't expect to drop a large part of your diet overnight.

Decrease carbs, increase fats and proteins.

Not all calories are processed the same way by your body. Carbs tend to suppress the hormones that say "I'm full", but fats and proteins increase the satiated response.

Opt for full-fat foods, such as milk, yogurt, etc. and you can add an avocado to your meal, toss in some heavy cream into a shake; just be mindful of calories.

Eat only when you're hungry and eat on a schedule.

Every time you reach for food ask yourself "am I hungry or am I bored?" I found that a lot of my unplanned eating came not as a response to hunger, but to a need to do something different. Now I get up and refill my water bottle, or if I have time take a short walk to refresh my mind.

Eating a fixed calorie amount on a schedule can manage hunger, which in turn prevents overeating. I'm on a cut now, but my schedule is:

I worked full time (pizza delivery), went to college full time, and had a full time social life. I used to slam Monster energy drink while driving the car until I started peeing green, then "backed" off to a constant stream of Mountain Dew.

"Quitting" soda was easy: I moved to Diet Mountain Dew, then cut back to only permitting caffeine in the morning to get better sleep. Finally, I switched to coffee in the morning, but have to occasional Diet Mtn Dew from time to time.

A buddy of mine lost 140 pounds after switching to water. He would even still allow himself one soda (8-12oz) per day, but he didn't make any other changes at all. No exercising, no other dietary changes. He just switched to water.

I went from about 200 to 150-something the same way when I was in HS... simply by putting down the sugary drinks. Later I picked up a bicycle and lost some more... That was 20 years ago, I weighed in at 144 today.

I have a small problem with this. I've always heard that diet sodas are actually more unhealthy for you in the long run than non diet sodas. Is this really true? I rib my friends a little for drinking diet soda, but only in jest.

I'd like to add to this, that it often takes people years to put on the amount of weight that they do, and it's unreasonable to think that it can all be lost in a matter of weeks or even months, safely and for the long term. Also when it comes to exercise, doing something that you enjoy and easily fits into your schedule is the best thing for you.

There are conflicting theories on this, but my thought is no. There is more to sweet beverages than calories. Artificial sweeteners do not help break your sugar craving, and there is controversy about your body's insulin response to them. Best choice is just water and tea.

I would go with this. There is a direct reason and an indirect reason to drink unsweetened.

Directly, because you are cutting all those empty calories. But indirectly, and I think this is important, you are retraining your taste and your body's expectations.

When you drink artificially sweetened drinks, you lose the calories, but you don't re-normalize your body's tastes. This becomes important for controlling sugar cravings in the overall diet. There is even some research suggesting artificially sweetened drinks may be worse for you than the sugary stuff.

If you're wanting a drink that has flavour but no sugar / artificial sweetners, etc in it, get an infuser. Basically, you cut up different fruits (apples, limes, lemons, oranges, etc), herbs (mint, thyme, etc), and veggies (cucumbers), mix them up however you want, and let it sit in the water. Infusers are nice because you don't have to strain the added items from the water, but if you don't care about a hunk of fruit in your glass, adding it directly works just fine too. Some of my favourite combinations are lime/lemon and cucumber on its own. Just a thought! :)

In my experience, I had to completely cut out carbonated drinks. I found that even drinking zero calorie sodas and energy drinks just ended up making me more lethargic in the end. I felt heavy and slow, unmotivated and I still would crave sugary drinks. And with soda, you really don't hydrate very well, and in some cases that can make you feel like you're hungry.

When I started my weight loss endeavor, I weighed about 200lbs. Started bu cutting out regular soda, went to diet soda. Started to realize I was getting dehydrated and the soda wasn't really helping. I cut out all sugary drinks and only went to green/black tea and water. It was tough for about the first month or so, but I slowly started to feel like I could handle more and more at the gym each day.

I now weigh 150, I'm in great shape and I feel terrific. I'm by no means done with fitness, because my goals have changed and evolved as my body has changed. Now, I mainly drink water, but I'll have a cup or 2 of black coffee here and there. I'll sometimes get the non-carbonated vitamin-based energy drinks if I need a little boost before a workout. I changed the way I think about food and eating and now I really don't have to worry about it as much anymore. I eat when I'm hungry, but I don't overdo it. I don't eat fried foods, but every once in a while I'll eat some sweet potato fries with my meals. If I want a small piece of chocolate, I'll have it. I just know my limits. And I know that since I work out for 2-3 hours at least 4 times a week, and I generally eat healthy, my metabolism can handle it.

I would like to piggyback off of this and let you in on one of my favorite quotes. "Turn your initial motivation into an ongoing habit". Many people can start strong. It's those that keep with it who persevere. Good luck OP.

Start counting calories. Eat whatever you want, but start keeping track. Myfitnesspal is free and will tell you a target calorie count and allow to factor in workouts. I lost 35 lbs in about 6 months and made significant and lasting lifestyle changes.

You will have to talk to someone else about the best workouts. I like bike riding personally.

i cant recommend it enough. i used it for awhile and learned so much. i tracked everything except for veggies. i even made sure i had extra calories for beer and shit. i dont use it much now bc i have learned great eating habits and got so much better at keeping track at what i eat each day.

Seconded. It's not the only way but it's certainly an option. You will have to eat your veggies wiith this diet plan but veggies are good! It's much easier to stay strict on this diet (in my opinion) but you have to give up almost all sugar in your diet. In conclusion: bacon.

My wife use to be in chicken finger and pizza mode. Fries, etc... It's all she knew. Start watching a lot of cooking shows and fall in love with food. I know that sounds like weird advice, but learning how to cook will help you begin eating healthier.
You can do this!

Yeah! And you really can't go wrong with fresh meats and veggies.
My best advice for people who want to lose weight is to learn to cook fresh food and do smart shopping. If you don't buy shitty food, you can't eat shitty food. That's really all it took for me.

At one point of my life I was consuming around a gallon of pop a day (worked at a restaurant full time with free pop). I had gained so much weight and became so lethargic I decided to just cut out sugary drinks and replace it with water with a squeeze of lemon. I lost a lot of weight and felt so much better it was crazy.

It's nuts how much that little change did. And since then I've been making little changes to get where I am at now (which isn't crazy but it's progress)

At this point what you need to do is simple. Eat less, move more. This is going to be a matter of getting your sealegs under you. It's going to be a process, but this is good enough for a start. Replace any calories you'd be drinking (soda, juice, milk, milkshakes, etc.) with water and walk at least half an hour every day then do some basic bodyweight movements (FAQ at /r/bodyweightfitness). Since you're a gamer you might want to invest in a stationary bike or some kind of cardio machine that way you can turn your gaming into exercise, but still do that outside exercise so you're still making an active step toward your health every day.

Down the road, joining a gym is definitely a good idea, but you're fairly deconditioned at this point and taking these first steps is going to help ensure you're successful when you make that transition. I work at a gym, and I see too many people come in all gung ho to fix themselves but end up burning out because they don't have a base of healthy habits to work off of. The FAQ has more information on diet and different types of training for when you do make it to a gym.

/r/keto has more information on that diet. It's not a silver bullet, but it can be helpful for a beginner, since it's a very intuitive diet. Basically, look at something, ask it if it's a carb. If not, then you eat it.

First, I have to commend you from the bottom of my heart for wanting to change. If you're serious and committed, you've taken the first step in an entire lifestyle change that will better you in ways you couldn't possibly imagine. I've gotta echo a lot of the comments that've already been made. Everything looks spot on. I'll add my own take as well based on what has worked for me and my wife (I'm a fan of bullet points):

*Attack this thing on three fronts: activity, diet, and mentality. All three are incredibly important to making this stick for the rest of your life. Start with small, reasonable changes and substitutions. This will be far less shocking and lessen your chances of regressing.

*For activity, this isn't just exercise, it's how you conduct your day-to-day activities. Get more walking into your life. Start by just parking toward the back of a lot--your car will suffer far less dings that way, too. Having a pedometer helps with this and I've gotta give a plug to FitBit for that. I bought mine a year ago and it's been a huge motivator.

*Set reasonable, weekly goals for yourself. Again, start small. It helps to keep track of this somewhere very visible in your living space. I'm a fan of the dry erase board. Maybe try three days a week of 30 minutes minimum of exercise. You honestly do not need to live in a gym or bust your ass for hours a day to initiate good, healthy change. I'm a fan of three days a week because if you fall behind during the week, you can have a strong weekend by hitting Friday, Saturday, and Sunday hard. Don't beat yourself up for failing a weekly goal, either. Just do what it takes to fix whatever got in the way next week.

*Figure out what sort of preferences you have with exercise. Are you more of a social person? If so, try the gym near you. Are you more likely to work out if it's convenient in your own house/apartment? If so, look into a home setup. A home setup was particularly appealing for me as it was just a room away, and it can be done on the cheap. An exercise/yoga mat, some free weights, and a few exercise videos can all be had for under $100. I like Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper quite a bit (Biggest Loser fan here, admittedly) as they really emphasize form in their videos. If your form sucks, you can seriously injure yourself. Be forewarned: Jillian and Bob are both very hard, but Bob is insanely hard. Two years in and his videos still push me to my limit.

*Get a lot of variety in your exercise. It might help to keep you from getting bored/discouraged. The rotation that works for me is something for cardio, something for strength training, and something for flexibility/balance. For cardio, you need to get your heart rate above 120ish (see your doc about this). A brisk walk is a perfectly respectable way to start. I also invested in a stationary bike for variety. Free weights are terrific for strength training, but good old fashioned calisthenics (pushups, lunges, crunches, jumping jacks, squats, etc.) are great as well. Yoga is my recommendation for a little balance in your routine. Videos are the most convenient, but without an actual instructor you have to really pay attention to your form while you're still learning.

*For diet, again you ought to start slowly. My advice is to start with portion control first. That's the easiest and quickest way to see progress. I use a meal tracker on my phone (MyFitnessPal) which was surprisingly easy to stick with right away. You can even scan bar codes on food and look up a shockingly large online database of unscannable food. A calorie counter like that is probably ideal as it keeps you honest and keeps a hard number right in front of you, but this isn't mandatory. At the very least, start looking at the nutritional stats on what you eat. Get advice from your doc on how many calories you should be consuming daily, and try to stick to that.

*Once you're feeling comfortable and sticking to portion control, start to look at WHAT you're eating. There's two things you should start looking to reduce (not eliminate) from your diet: sodium and sugar. Again, a meal tracker will show you how much you consume per day, which can be absolutely shocking. Don't know where to start? Just start making substitutions. Love potato chips? Get the reduced fat, low sodium version and stick to the portions they recommend. Love to pour a ton of salt on your potatoes? Try crushed red pepper instead. It gives it a spicy zing that completely makes up for the lack of a salty flavor. Got a weak spot for candy bars? Have a banana instead.

*Speaking of sugar, look at the sugar content of what you drink. Those energy drinks that are particularly appealing to people with low energy are actually the cause of sapping your energy. Most energy drinks have 50-60 grams of sugar, which is approximately the daily LIMIT for the average male. I know it's boring, but try water instead. If it is boring, use Mio or some other flavoring for it which adds some interest but doesn't add any unnecessary sugar. You're probably dehydrated (the majority of us are), so the more you can substitute for water, the better.

*Obviously you want to get enough A/B/C/D vitamins, calcium, protein and such, but one nutrient I don't think gets nearly enough love is potassium. The average human body needs 3500 mg of potassium a day. I was getting less than 1000 when I started paying attention. When I was starting to fix my diet and get in shape, I was still feeling somewhat tired and not really 100%--until I started getting enough potassium. Low potassium will cause such a ton of bad things to happen and getting enough will do so much good so quickly. A low sodium 11.5 oz. can of V8 has 1,180 mg of potassium, nearly 1/3 of your daily need. The taste isn't spectacular, but if you can shotgun a can of beer, you can shotgun a can of good ol' potassium.

*Teach yourself to cook and look for HEALTHY recipes online. I could go on forever about this one so I'll keep this one short.

*For mentality, it begins and ends with discipline. You can buy a bunch of exercise shit, buy a gym membership, buy better food, yadda yadda, but none of it will do ANYTHING for you unless you learn the discipline to follow through. Hit your weekly exercise goals, EAT the healthier food you buy (don't let it sit in your fridge and rot), and make it all happen. Not hitting your goals on something? Figure out what's stopping you, and change it. No one will care more about you than you. You have to love yourself enough to actually make changes. Invest in yourself.

*Identify the sources of unhealthy shit in your life. Family, friends, and even jobs can be hidden sources of problems and even might want to keep you unhealthy (consciously or subconsciously) for a variety of reasons. When possible, cut the problems out or at the very least communicate that this change is a necessity and will happen because you need it to be a better you.

*Further on sources of problems, minimize the amount of time spent on inactive stuff like tv, video games, internet, etc. Or hell, make sure you're doing something active if you don't want to miss your favorite tv shows. Even walking in place is better than sitting stagnant.

*Surround yourself by positive influences. Even coming to this sub is a great start. Read about people who've accomplished their health goals and learn from them. Try to make friends with healthy people as they might be the ones to encourage you the most and keep you focused. Start replacing elements of your old, unhealthy life with new ones. Small stuff that may not seem like they're particularly relevant, such as changing the art on your walls or rearranging furniture, can put you in a new mindset and maybe even help you break old habits.

This is my first time commenting in this sub (that I recall) and one of the first posts I've ever made, but something about your story compelled me to pipe up. You've got a believer in me.

Now there are a few things I need you to understand, before I get into specifics, that I had to understand as a fat person, in order to stop being a fat person.

Here's the key point: You are fat and you aren't losing weight right now because every single day you choose to eat more calories than your body naturally burns. Let that sink in. All of the bullshit you've been told about genetics, slow metabolism, fat parents, flat-feet, bad knees etc. is nothing but excuses. The average, 175lbs 18 year old male body burns about 2000 calories a day, just by sitting in front of the computer through the natural processes of staying alive. The more mass you have, the more calories you need to burn everyday to keep the same mass. I entered your info into this calculator and it tells me that you need to be eating 3263 calories everyday to not be actively losing weight. You don't have a slow metabolism, you eat at least 150% more food everyday than what thin people eat in order to stay fat. You seem to be eating more which will make you fatter.

Let me make it crystal clear: Calories in, calories out. More specifically, eating 3500 calories less than what you burn per week, will make you shed about 1lbs of body mass per week. That translates to about a 500 calorie deficit per day to lose a pound per week. Now this deficit can come from anywhere. Here is a what 500 calories looks like in calorie-dense food items. People here have told you to pick up cardio. This calculator tells me, you would burn 500 calories by walking on a treadmill for 40 minutes straight. Now you won't be able to walk for that long right now, but if you try you'll get there quickly.

Now, a few things about cardio; I'm going to suggest you change your attitude and realize cardio should not be your focus: your diet is. Doing 40 minutes of cardio will make you hungry, insanely hungry. If you give in and gorge on a small amount of calorie-dense foods after doing cardio, all your effort will have been wasted. I suffered from this before I got my head on straight. After a run, I'd just feel really good, so I figure, "I've been so good and I really am hungry, I'm allowed to gorge on food right now." That got me no where after running for 4 months. Cardio is only good if you can keep to your diet.

Finally, let's get to your diet. It doesn't involve any specific foods, meal times or shit like that. It's very simple: eat about 500-1000 calories less than what you burn each day. That is about 2200-2700 calories a day for you right now. If you do 40 minutes of cardio, you get 2700-3200 calories per day. The only way to lose weight is to run a calorie deficit, there is no other way. This is how every diet works; they dress diets up with gimmicks so you try it, but only the deficit makes you lose weight. I don't give a shit if you eat nothing all day and then eat 5 big macs before bed or a cup of oatmeal with bluberries and skim milk every hour. Meal frequency or meal times do not matter in terms of weight loss. It's all bullshit. Whether you eat garbage or hearty food made with real ingredients does matter somewhat, but not even nearly as much as calories in calories out. So do what you can, but stick to your calories. Keep eating garbage if you manage to keep below 2700, but you'll soon realize that it won't make you feel full for how many of your daily calories it eats up. It is much better eat good food that keep you fuller.

How will you stick to your calories? Thankfully that's the easiest part in 2013; there are calorie tracker apps and websites. The reason people had been coming up with complicated diets is because calorie tracking was too inconvenient 15 years ago. I've paid thousands of dollars to dieticians and gym memberships and all of that money combined never got me as far as the 99 cents I spent on my calorie tracker. I used livestrong.com's app, but there are many out there. No smartphone? Register to a website, its free. Calorie trackers will save your progress each day, make graphs, give monthly reports, track your weight and many other good things.

Your task is to track your calories every single day, for two months. Start today. Track everyday, no excuses. If you gorge, you're not gonna want to track, but do it anyway. You'll only lose weight if you're honest with yourself. Before you eat food, look up its calories, and decide whether its worth it. Whenever you're about to eat some caloric food, look it up and ask yourself whether you'll be happy with your daily intake after you've eaten it. After two months of using the app, I got enough calorie-savvy that I was able to judge how many calories I ate in a meal and mentally keep myself in check everyday. An egg is 70 calories, piece of bread 100 calories, peanut butter 200 calories, nutella 200 calories. Nutella sandwich 400 calories. A strawberry is 4 calories and an entire stalk of celery is 6 calories. Think about what's worth it and what's not and if you're committed to your goal, you'll realize that garbage food is not worth it.

What I'm getting at here is a whole other way of looking at food. Food only tastes good, because your brain wants you to eat it for energy so your brain rewards you with happy chemicals when you eat it. Your brain evolved on the plains of Africa 100,000 years ago, when there was a real possibility of not getting food over the next week, so you had to eat the food in front of you. You do not have that possibility. It's OK to feel hungry and not give in. You're not going to pass out, you're not going to die, the bad feeling you're getting from hunger doesn't exist outside your brain, you can mentally tell yourself its just your brain. You're going to be fine and if you just distract yourself you'll lose weight. If you were stranded on an island with no food but water, you probably wouldn't die for at least a year because of your fat reserves. Food is for sustenance, food is not for happy feelings. The good feelings you get as you gorge are not a substitute for being happy about what you've accomplished with yourself.

An ambitious but doable goal would be to get to 175lbs in 24 months from now. That's on average a 600 calorie deficit per day for two years. Because you're so fat, you can lose weight faster than above average weight people can without endangering your health. I'd suggest you aim for 750 to 1000 calorie deficit per day at least for a few months. You'll be very hungry at first, because your brain really wants that food for energy and its not used to not getting it. Say no, just say no. The first 30 lbs will be the quickest to go. But after the first 30lbs, you won't have to feel so hungry anymore; your brain will have adjusting to surviving by burning your fat reserves. At this point, you cannot stop to celebrate or you'll stall, or worse yo-yo back up. This means you can make enough progress very fast to motivate yourself to go much further. Always, keep eyes on the prize; think about what you can be in two years by exercising willpower today.

Let's look at your prognosis. If you cut 750 calories a day like I did when I was 225lbs, you'll lose 1.5 pounds a week. That's little more than 6lbs a month. In seven months you'll be closing in on 250lbs. In a year you'll be 225lbs. Your progress will slow at this point. Running a calorie deficit for a year and a big one at that will slow your metabolism so at that point, you should be progressing along with either weightlifting or weightlifting and cardio. Exercise will drive your metabolism back up; but you have to keep running your deficit. It should take you 24-36 months to get to average person weight.

About muscles. Muscles look good. But your fat makes them invisible. Losing weight will include muscle loss as well. Muscle loss is factored into the numbers I've given you here, you cannot shed pure fat. Weightlifting along with your diet, would help you retain muscle. I imagine this might not be supported by everyone here, but if I were you, I wouldn't go into lifting before I've lost significant weight, because it will increase your appetite immensely and suppressing it should be your main goal right now. I think you can live with some muscle loss right now, if you're committed to recovering after you're leaner. If you let lifting stall your progress, your mental motivation might suffer and you need all the mental power you can get to curb your appetite.

That being said, you must absolutely pick up lifting after you lose some weight. It will increase your metabolism (i.e. appetite), make you feel great and promote further fat loss. Not to mention, it will forge your personality like nothing else.

This is not an overnight process. And this is not just about weight loss, or looking good. This is about self-improvement and positive change. You are the start of a long road. This is your life. You'll keep living in that body for 70 more years, but that's it. You make the decisions about what that body looks like every single day. You can take the easy way out and accept defeat, feel sorry for yourself, make excuses, substitute videogames for living life (there is nothing wrong with just playing them), but in the end, you're only holding yourself back from what you could be. I repeat my first point, there is nothing other than your past decisions and the decisions of your parents as a kid that is keeping you from looking like a Greek god. You can make the right decisions today.

PS: I imagine you want to lose weight to make yourself more attractive. There is one thing you can do tomorrow that will make you more attractive: cut your hair. Cut the metalhead hair and shave the beard, short clean hair is fashionable for guys right now and will likely be for the next decade. I had long hair a few years back, it takes some willpower to realize it doesn't look good, but its only good when you step out of your comfort zone and make positive changes. Pick up a tip from women: there's nothing like a hair cut to make you feel like its a new you.

Doesn't matter what you eat, just get in less of it. You can start losing the pounds without even hitting the gym, by just counting your calories.
Just eat less and get some exercise, man. Don't get caught in the analysis paralysis before you even start.

EDIT: To all the guys talking about healthy foods; I absolutely agree with you, I personally avoid junk food. But for OP, baby steps man. He's freaking out at the mere thought of eating vegetables. Asking him to make such a change at the get go doesn't seem to me as a recipe for success.

Not disagreeing, but there is a caveat to this-eating foods in low nutritional value may not help you succeed here because it fails to satiate hunger, causing over-consumption. Many people fail because they think they just have to count calories and only care about pounds coming off week to week. They then still eat muffins, white bread, no veggies, fried foods, etc. Then they ultimately fail because they're still hungry, or they get stressed out, and then they binge. I've been there- a hundred times before.

I've gone weeks before cutting calories-but ultimately just ended back up where I was-only this time, worse. I focused on only losing pounds and being skinny-not on living a healthy lifestyle. I admired the result instead of focusing on the process, and then I failed again. It's too easy to binge when you have garbage food all around. Most people don't have the willpower to just cut calories and be good, and that's why so many fail.

I agree with you, but I think this is just advice for starting out. Baby steps are what lead to massive and permanent life changes. He starts out eating a little less, then a little less, then a little healthier, then a bit more exercise and so on.

The easiest way to get started is to use a calorie tracker like myfitnesspal. It's amazing when you first start and realize just how many calories you are eating. The first two weeks are going to be hell as you try to limit your calorie intake. But trust me it gets easier and when you start to see results it gets even easier as you get more motivated. Good luck.

Very true, if you can get through those first 2 weeks it helps immensely. I've never lost the weight you are looking at loosing but there gets to be a breakthrough point where you feel satiated on like 1/2 the food you used too and it actually takes a decent amount of effort to fall off the wagon.

It really does matter what you eat. Some foods fill you up easier and keep you full longer. I could eat half a box of Mac and cheese for 500 calories instead of the usual whole box but I would still be hungry. Or I could eat 4 eggs, be full, and only have eaten 400 calories.

Then there are foods that are designed to store fat instead of using it right away; like bread and pasta. That's why you get tired after eating them and get hungry again sooner.

Meats are good at providing a steady source of energy and keeping you full longer and vegetables are a good low calorie filler.

Calories in - calories out is good in theory but if you're still eating the same junk food everyday you're going to be miserable.

This really depends on the person - for some people, "eating less" is just psychologically not possible. They feel starved and panicked, and end up bingeing to "make up" for the food they're used to. For those people, it can be an amazing realization that you can eat more vegetables, volume-wise, than the food you were eating before, and that proteins and good fats keep you feeling full.

However, for other people, the change in diet is too dramatic to maintain, and in that case, eating less of the same stuff is a better approach.

It all depends on your relationship with food, your needs, and your resources.

This was me, and it was hypoglycemia. (Self diagnosed)
I would get low blood sugar, shaky, cold sweats, etc... I could get quite ill so I ate a lot. I was always concerned about food. I would not go anywhere without access to some food.

The day I went gluten free, it got better immediately! I'm not certain that it's the gluten specifically or the high glycemic index foods I was eating that caused it.

While I do not know for certain the reasons... I do know that eating GF allows me to be hungry without the devastating low blood sugar effects. This allows me to eat modest amounts without pain or fear.

My eating continues to evolve and I am loving my results. I go to the gym once a week and I'm pretty muscular and getting pretty lean. There is no doubt I'd be getting better results going to the gym more, however, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. I was not tremendously overweight, 5' 11" and around 220, but I've had an active job my whole life. I've lost around 20 to 25 pounds, but by looking at photos most people would think it's more like 40.

This is something I always wonder about. I am on a slow and steady track on of losing weight, and have heard both arguments. As long as you eat less than what you burn, you will lose weight, it doesn't really matter where those calories come from. I've also heard that your body breaks down and metabolizes things differently, so getting your calories from healthier foods is better. I have been doing the former, and have been losing weight (slowly) but I often wonder if doing the latter will give be better results.

You said that first impressions are formed by appearance and unfortunately thats a hard truth and I agree with you. With that said, I'd suggest a haircut. From a dude who had long hair most of his life, after getting my hair cut I noticed an immense increase in female attention and an overall level of respect I hadn't felt before. Without doing any exercise or diet changes, a simple haircut made me that much more approachable. I'm not trying to be a dick, just throwing that out there.

I just want to throw this out there, diabetic or not, living a sedentary life style and having a poor diet will MAKE you tired. Just putting in 20 mins of activity every other day and making sure you drink a ton of water will help get out of slug mode. I've only lost thirty lbs so far and just getting up and moving made a huge difference for my energy level and my over all mood. I've found that I have very little anxiety or depression on days when I'm active. Just to start, maybe cut out drinks with calories. Stick to water or water flavoring packets with little to no calories. Those soft drinks and milk will drive your calories through the roof without you even noticing. It's a great way to start being healthier without changing too much at once. Also, exercise doesn't have to take place in a gym. Clean your house, mow your lawn, walk a dog or take a hike. I don't go to the gym, I don't like being around all the people, but I make sure to be active anyways.

As someone who was 5'9" and weighed 250 and is also a Type II diabetic who now weighs about 180, I would recommend the stronglifts 5x5 program. It is a beginning weightlifting program. There are other programs that you can do, this is just the one I used. My diet is still not great and this is easily going to be your biggest challenge. When you're on the stronglifts program don't concern yourself with losing weight. Just worry about getting stronger. If you are adding weight to your workout but you aren't losing weight then you are definitely putting on muscle and losing fat. And definitely go see a doctor. If you have Type II diabetes they will put you on medication. You can control Type II diabetes without medication but it takes great effort in your diet and exercise routine and most doctors will see you overweight and just put you on the meds right away to get your blood sugar under control. I imagine you don't sleep well either. Once you get your blood sugar under control you will sleep better than you have in years.

Cut out soft drinks from your diet. If you are absolutely dying for one, go for it, but try and avoid them as much as possible.

Drink way more water. It will give you a feeling of being full and sometimes we think we are hungry when actually just thirsty.

Do some activity everyday. If you need to start with a short walk, fine. But making a habit of it is a good thing!

Sounds like you like video games. Make it into a work out. Like set an alarm or every natural break in the game, do 10 push-ups. Sounds weird, but every time I use the restroom, I do a set of push-ups and it helps!!

Sounds like the diet could use some work. Try eating/snacking on things that are healthy and fill you up. Eating a lot of vegetables is a good start. If you go cold turkey on your favorite junk foods, it is easy to quit dieting, so go ahead and enjoy on occation (just not everyday). Like people are saying on here. Be aware of your caloric intake and you will be suprised how fast you drop weight.

6a. This last one might sound stupid, but it is something I would do to help myself. Start each day looking in the mirror. See if you are making progress to your fitness goal, if you see no difference use it as a visual motivator to stay in pursuit of your goal. "This fat has to go, I will get rid of it by eating healthy and working out." Say it out loud!! Use this to be accountable for yourself. Every time you are about to cheat on your diet, think about that moment every morning when you are sick of being overweight!

6b.Take a look at yourself in the mirror every night before you go to bed. "Did I take steps today to reach my goal? I think I look a little healthier, must have been that walk I took today and all the healthy food I ate." Use this time to enforce good habits, and pump yourself up! Achieving goals is exciting stuff and you have an opportunity to achieve a very rewarding one.

Also: Take a picture of yourself everyday. If you feel your progress start to stagnate look at where you started and how long it took you to get where you are. This is a journey, it's not going to happen overnight.

YOU CAN DO THIS, many many other people hav, ask yourself if they can do it why can't you!?

This will be buried but as far as fitness goes, the top few posts are great advice. You mentioned appearance so I just wanted to add a recommendation to /r/malefashionadvice. When you start losing weight you might have to get new clothes and if you feel like a style change I'd check out that subreddit. They can offer advice on hair and grooming and stuff as well. Good luck man I look forward to seeing your progress!

This diet/lifestyle change may not be for everyone ( it can be either) but based off your dislike of vegetables I'd recommend checking out r/keto. It's a low carb high fat low protein diet and it's been quite successful with many people in your shoes. You might find yourself liking vegetables after a bit on it. I'd explain it further if you're interested but r/keto has much better information. Also the book "the kerogen of diet" by Lyle McDonald is based off somehing called targeted keto which actually can help gain muscle while losing fat. Do not look at it as a magic pill diet because then you will lose a bit and learn nothing long term. What it is is a valuable tool to wean you off junk and sugar for a time while learning portion control and nutrition ratios in a manner that will probably feel easier then a low fat diet. I heartily recommend myfitnesspal and tracking your eating, don't let any dad diet convince you that your body is not a closed system ( ie what you eat minus exercise is what you gain, regardless of the diet). I've seen keto work really well both as a semipermanent thing and as a two month temporary thing to learn meal planning. The high fat portion of the diet helps curb hunger and keep things delicious for meat eaters like myself and made the whole food tracking thing more palatable. R/keto and r/ketogains( more aimed at bodybuilders and people using keto to gain mass)

Even with keto, you would need to at least eat some type of vegetable in order to make sure you don't get malnourished, but it wouldn't have to be the main part of your diet. Go to /r/keto for more info.

Basically, just pick a program and make sure you stick with it. This goes for both diet and exercise, which means you need to pick a form of exercise that you find enjoyable, and a diet that at least won't make you feel suicidal. If you like steak and chicken, low-carb/keto sounds like a good enough choice. What type of exercise do you think sounds the most appealing?

Start small. very small. Change something simple that you can sustain. Cut out sugary drinks or go for a walk 3x a week. Stick to it. be consistent. Once you can sustain a change, make another small change. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

My ex husband was 330 & got down to 270 by using My Fitness Pal to manage calorie intake + walking all the fucking time. He would walk for 90 minutes just around the neighborhood. The only changes to his diet were the portions. He wad drinking a 2 liter of soda a day & cut that out completely. You'll be surprised by how fast you lose it. Good luck!!

I'm a psychologist. Among my other roles, I do psychological screenings for bariatric surgery candidates. I'm also kinda fat myself, though fifty pounds shy of morbidly obese, so this topic is of great importance to me.

I'll keep this short and simple.

--Not all obese people overeat.

--Most obese people don't know whether they overeat.

--There's an easy way to find out. Keep a food diary for a couple of weeks. Include enough detail that you can look up the calories, during or later. Learn to eyeball a piece of cheese until you know what one ounce and two ounces look like. Learn to eyeball a blob of mayonnaise until you know what one ounce looks like, and so on. It isn't very hard. Restaurant meals are hardest to count calories for, but not impossible.

--After two weeks, add up the average number of calories per day. Most men can eat about 1800 calories per day without feeling miserable with hunger. If you're okay on 1800, try 1700, and so on, until you find your zone.

--Most women can go down to 1500 calories per day without being horribly hungry.

--We're talking about actual hunger here, and not the urge to eat. That's different.

--Once you get the previous few items figured out, set a minimum and maximum calorie goal per day. If your goal for average calories is 1800, set your range at 1600 to 2000. Keep track, don't cheat, keep using your food diary. If you stop using it, your average daily caloric intake will slowly creep up.

--Most fat people say, "I don't overeat. I just eat the wrong foods." This is a half-assed, ignorant statement. They haven't done their homework. There is no clear evidence that a calorie from a piece of bread or a bowl of ice cream causes more weight gain than a calorie from a lean chicken breast.

--You're going to be hearing about low-fat diets. It's possible that some people do better on low fat diets. There's probably some genetic variability. The problem with low fat diets is that fat is more satiating than carbs or protein. There's a risk of being horribly hungry all the time on low fat diets. If you're very hungry all the time, you will not succeed in the long run.

--You're going to be hearing a lot about low-carb diets. Almost everyone I screen for bariatric surgery has tried a low-carb diet. Their stories are depressingly similar: "I wasn't that hungry. I lost 30 (up to sixty) pounds pretty quick, then I hit a plateau. I continued to low-carb but couldn't lose any more weight. I got pretty sick of low-carb after awhile, so I decided to gradually move back to a more normal diet, still kind of low on carbs. I gained back all the lost weight, very rapidly, and then some more."

--You're going to be hearing about weight watchers. Almost all of the people I screen for bariatric surgery have been through weight watchers at one time or another. Many are lifetime members. Weight watchers has a few dirty little secrets.

--Many people who attend weight watchers meetings are not meeting their "point" goals. (Weight watchers uses "points" instead of calories. There's nothing special about points.) Many people who attend weight watchers are not even counting their points. There's no point in participating if you don't keep track of your points and meet your goals.

--I did weight watchers for many months. They "promised" me 1/2 to two pounds per week of weight loss. This was a lie. I lost about two ounces per week. The reason? For men my age, the weight watchers point goal works out to about 1700 calories per day. I was eating 1700 calories per day before I joined the program.

--If weight watchers helps you keep your calories down, stay with it. Some people do lose it and keep it off with WW.

--Eating lots and lots of fiber helps you be a little less hungry. Learn to love metamucil or generic psyllium powder. Learn to cook vegetables so they are actually good to eat. For busy people, frozen vegetables are just as good as fresh, and much more convenient. Learn to love beans. It's not hard to eat 50 grams of fiber a day, once you figure out how.

--You're going to be hearing about high-fructose corn syrup. As far as I can tell, the scientific jury is still out. My advice -- Just avoid all high-sugar foods, sucrose, glucose or fructose. Avoid all sodas, all fruit juice, fruit "drink," all candy, all cookies, all pies and cakes, etc. It's possible that sugar has some addictive properties.

--The deadliest foods contain a combination of fat, sugar, salt and tasty seasonings. They strongly stimulate your appetite. These include snack foods, dessert foods, most take-out foods, most fast foods, and pizza. Pizza might be the worst. It is pleasant to eat these foods, but it's quite possible to have a happy pleasant life while avoiding all of them. Avoid them. If you bring them into the house, you will eat them. You're going to need the cooperation of your family or roommates.

--For some crazy reason, people who drink diet sodas are, on the average, fatter than people who eat sugary sodas. Avoid all sodas. If you want something cool and fizzy, learn to drink club soda with a splash of lemon juice or lemon zest or a little bit of fruit juice for flavor.

--Very few people lose weight by diet alone. Exercise is also needed.

--Until recently, scientists urged fat people to walk briskly for half an hour three or four times per week (or some equivalent activity). It's now clear that this is not nearly enough exercise for weight loss. People who are losing lots of weight and keeping it off are doing the equivalent of 45 to 60 minutes of brisk walking, six or seven times per week.

--If walking hurts your knees and hips, try an elliptical trainer. There are many different kinds. I find some much more comfortable than others. Learn to train to your heart rate, at least 70% of maximum, sometimes up to 85% or even 90% of maximum.

--Cardiovascular exercise alone probably isn't good enough. It probably helps to increase your total muscle mass, with weight bearing exercise. Build it up over a period of six to twelve months. Don't neglect your legs. That's where most of your muscle mass is. But address every major muscle group.

--All the statistics from credible sources say you are more likely to fail than succeed. Failing probably as nothing to do with your motivation, good judgment, will-power or intelligence, so don't blame yourself. However, some people do succeed. You can find out exactly how they succeed by checking out the National Weight Control Registry. Just google it.

--If you fail and remain morbidly obese, get a gastric bypass. Of course you'd prefer to lose weight with diet and exercise, and it will hurt your pride if you cannot succeed. That kind of pride is not worth dying for. If you wait too long, your knees and hips will wear out, and then you won't be able to exercise any more.

Once you start cutting all the junk out of your diet, the actual food starts to taste better. For example, if you don't eat a lot of sweets steamed carrots actually taste sweet. As someone else in this thread said, sugary drinks (soda/juice) are one of the easiest things to cut out. Fast food is another nice step, but you'd have to learn to cook.

For exercise, generally a mix of cardio and free weights are good.

To find an appropriate difficulty for cardio, take some exercise you can do (biking, walking, elliptical at the gym, running if it's not too hard on your joints), and find the point where you get lightly winded doing it. Then go a little bit easier. You should still be able to talk without a lot of trouble when doing cardio.

On the note of diet, I can't agree more. I also find that there's a subconscious motivation to eat well so that the hard work you put in goes to waste. Once you can see and track the first steps towards your goal, staying on that track becomes easier and easier.

I went from 350lbs to 170lbs after gastric bypass surgery, but the lessons I've learned are very applicable even if our methods will differ. You'll do great if you're dedicated and follow a plan.

My main questions and concerns are I'd say:

1)How much should I exercise? Every day? Is that too much for starting out?

Start slow by walking. Then add weight lifting it is much more effective for burning calories and adding muscle. Just start slowly.

2)What should I exercise for fat-burning and some muscle gain? Treadmil? The bars with the weights on the end? I really am lost.

Weightlifting and walking. Start with wieghtlifting machines with light weights and high reps. When you're ready, move to free weights by asking for help with a trainer or friend. Keep it simple and short until you're ready.

3) What do I eat?
Protein, a daily once a day vitamin, and water. However much vegetables you can tolerate.

Here is a trick don't drink anything with your food unless you're choking or something. Then don't drink for 30-40min after your meal. It will take you much longer to digest your food and you'll stay full longer.
Drink water! Don't drink juice, or soda or diet soda. Soda and diet soda dehydrate you a lot and make you thirsty. The feeling of thirst is very similar to hunger and you probably mistake it for hunger. Drink a lot of water in between meals it will keep that hungry feeling away.

How do I break free? Reduce your carbohydrate intake as much as possible, increase your protein intake and eat proteins you like. Drink a lot of water (seriously).

Do I NEED to eat lettuce/tomato and all of the vegetables? Take a multivitamin and eat some vegetables here and there.

What is keto?
I don't know, I'm guessing a protein based diet to put you into ketosis.

Will that be better for a larger person like myself?
Don't know, atkins, south beach, etc etc are great for short term weight loss, but really it is about finding a way of eating you enjoy that helps you maintain a weight at which you feel good.

don't drink anything with your food unless you're choking or something. Then don't drink for 30-40min after your meal. It will take you much longer to digest your food and you'll stay full longer.

I think that advice only applies to gastric bypass patients to be honest. I've never experienced that nor have I heard it recommended in the context of weight loss for the general population. Otherwise, good points.

It works both ways, adding water will distend the fundus sooner sending signals to stop eating eating and feelings of fullness, but it will also aid to the consistency of the slurry in the stomach and signal the piloris is to release and the stomach will empty sooner. Without water the slurry will reach consistency slower and the piloris will release later so you will stay full longer. You need to eat a bit slower to help prevent over eating without water.

It's really great you're deciding to do this now while you are young. It will be a lot easier the sooner you get started than if you wait until you're older. really just try to walk more and eat less/healthier food! Once you start losing you could start trying to lift weights and such but just walking and eating better will have you dropping pounds in no time. Another quick simple way is to drink just water. Cut all soft drinks and juice out and have just water! Good luck keep your head up!!!

Before you take anyone's advice on here - go to a doctor and find out if you have any health issues. See if your health insurance allows a visit or consultation with a nutritionist at your hospital - after you've seen your GP to see if you have diabetes. If you have diabetes, do not just try to change up your diet - you may make yourself sicker or even die if you go too much too fast.

I know it's an unpopular solution for this sub, but my issue with losing weight has always been my diet. I suck at counting calories (get bored with it) and I have no idea what a proper portion size is. And saying "eat healthy" is useless since I'll still gorge myself on healthy foods - after all, fruit is healthy (and also high calorie). So I went ahead and took the plunge with my SO into nutrisystem. I'd done Jenny Craig before and it was similar, and also cheaper. Depending on your budget, that might be too expensive, so you could look at what they have for their meal plans and try to plan accordingly, but it's basically 250-300 calories for the major meals (focusing on whole grains, protein) with <100 calorie snacks of protein (think string cheese) or carbs (think fruit or bread/pasta) in between. For a girl, the diet is 1200 calories a day with unlimited veggies and for a guy it's more like 1500 calories with unlimited veggies.

For me, there's so much misleading information out there on what a good diet is, it gets overwhelming to figure out. So I would suggest looking into any sort of Jenny Craig/weight watchers/nutrisystem sort of plan - they're expensive, but they teach you portion sizes and what's "appropriate" for eating and how much of it to eat. It's the easiest way to change your diet, imo. But again, can be very expensive. If that doesn't work for you, then see if you can visit a nutritionist and get some sort of diet plan.

Alternatively, some gyms will offer personal training specials and the personal trainers will give you a diet plan (and exercise too). But they'll always be pushing you to buy more training packages, and that gets really expensive.

Good luck though. Wanting to change and taking the first step is always the hardest part.

You're changing your life, not only dieting or starting a physical fitness plan. It has to be something that becomes second nature for you, so integrated that it becomes automatic. My doctor hounded me for almost twenty years to use Sugar Busters. (It's available as a cheap paperback, around $9 US.) When I finally started doing the low glycemic index thing, it worked when just dieting never had - at least not for long. I've kept 150+ pounds of for over three years, beaten Type II diabetes, and changed my life forever. You can too.

You've already started, you want to do something for yourself. The advice other people have mentioned about making changes slowly is what worked for me. If you go from whatever you've been doing to a strict bodybuilding lifestyle overnight, its not going to stick.

Another thing I can tell you is try to keep motivating yourself. Maybe start reading motivational books... like Bruce Lee's bio and maybe go on the social part of bodybuilding.com so you have an online community to support you.

The hardest part will be your friends and family. They are used to you the way you are and will try to enforce your old habits. You have to be strongest around them.... start deciding what you're going o say when they ask why you don't want to go to McDonalds...

Good for you. It looks like there are already tons of great info, so I apologize if this is redundant. My wife went through dramatic weight loss a few years back and I can give you some insight from someone who helped her along the way.

1) Make dietary changes slowly. A lot of advice talks about switching to water, that's a good start. Your brain is wired for sweets/sugars and so on, you can't go cold turkey. Cut things out by food group or day, however you want.

2) Exercise on the other hand has to be done every day. Your brain gets wired of exercise, so its important to keep it up. If say you are going to walk every other day, it gets too easy to say you'll skip today and do it two days in a row. I'm not sure where you live, but its getting into colder/rainy season so its very easy to say you can't exercise. Consider getting yourself a bike and a trainer if you have room in your living space. Check craigslist if you don't want to spend much money. It can be intimidating to exercise outside, and difficult to exercise enough indoors. With a bike trainer you can exercise indoors and come spring take the bike outdoors and have a lot more confidence.

Durr, I just read the comments and you're in Australia, so I'm guessing the weather is a bit nicer, but you still may prefer to exercise indoors for the time being.

Good luck, stick to it. I'm sure you can.

PS Stop over a r/Malefasionadvice as you start to change to the new you, you may find yourself wanting to change your dress.

Like previous redditors have said, if you think you have diabetes, get that checked out as soon as possible.

I went down from 22 stone (308lbs) to 12.5 stone (175lbs) in two years. I recognise it was unhealthy but just to make it even worse I was 22 stone at 15 years old so I wanted that to change.

Here is what I did: in your first month, don't do anything drastic like exercise every day, eat healthy cause you quit. You don't get motivated cause you don't like it and your body goes through this weird withdrawal of not getting all those delicious things it used to get. Drink more water, include it with a meal. You can have soft drinks but try to get yourself off it. Also this is a more psychological tip but eat your meals without distraction, no TV, no internet. You feel more full and you feel better. Same goes for snacks, once again, try and eat less snacks or replace them with healthier alternatives (e.g. chocolate with digestives or chips with potato wedges). Now these changes will be a little difficult but it is worth it and you NEED to start thinking in the long term, what do you want to look like? Why are you trying to get healthier? What are your goals?

The physical exercise, I took too well because, although I was heavy set I had enjoyed sport at school so I started walking for 20 minutes, four days a week. (No matter how unfit/fit you are, you should do 20 minutes of cardio a day, it's good for ya) eventually after a week or two, I started late night jogging (I was embarrassed about my appearance) around a cricket pitch in my village for 20 minutes 3/4 times a week. I would time myself, I would count my laps, I would set a goal and accomplish it. Sometimes I wouldn't, sometimes I would. And when I did, I grew in confidence and I would aim higher and higher.

After a while of this, I started noticing slight areas where I lost fat, for example, I finally had ONE chin and my fingers were no longer touching each other constantly due to the fat around them. And for a kid with clinical depression, these differences were HUGE.

After a lot months of this I decided for a little while I would stop drinking my weakness...PEPSI. God I huff the stuff. With this new found fitness confidence, after the first week it was easy. Then that cheat meal glass at the end of the month was sexy. I went from eating my standard snack of a complete variety pack of Walkers crisps (6 bags of chips) and some chocolate, to some biscuits and some fruits. My meals were still all over the place as I have a lazy family who don't exactly gather round the table and eat together every meal time. But seriously the soft drink thing. If you drink two glasses a day for a year, then that is two stones added onto your weight, that stuff will get ya.

I later got a gym membership, and I went in having done only a little before but not really knowing what was the best thing to do. Now I hate losing money, (I spent a grand when I was a kid but that is a different story for another day but it resulted in me hating losing money) and if you want to make money on a corporate gym, you gotta go around 3 times a week. I went 4. My usual routine was go to school, or get the bus there. Walk 3 miles to the gym and hop on to the ellipticals for 45 minutes and go to town and sweat my arse off. After getting comfy on them I tried out programs on it like X mode, Arm blaster, Glutes kicker. Which were good, but what worked for me was popping it on Hill mode and putting it up a couple levels (around 3) I did this every day for months on end with a minimum of 30 minutes on the ellipticals and averaging at about 40 every time. Yes, I got bored sometimes but I powered through, thought about the LONG TERM. Which is worth thinking about. After this hard work of slow cardio, I would try my hand at the simple resistance weight machines for about 30 minutes, this slowly built my muscle and aided in my fat loss regime. This meant my gym sessions in a month had gone from 30 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes. This regime right here was the main destroyer of fat loss. I varied of course, interval cycling, rowing for 20 minutes, just weight training. But I always came back to the ellipticals because it just worked for me, and with a serious weight change you NEED to find what you enjoy because if you aren't finding any enjoyment (not even in the progress your making) then why even bother carrying on?

After a lot of time doing that, I became way more fit and I wish I took progress pics or before and after pics but I did not. I do have one I made for facebook but who cares about that? Anyhow after this I was weighing around 13/14 stone. My diet had improved in the aspect I didn't hunger for a meal for 3 but instead a meal for one (which was in itself a victory and a loss, cause food is good) I began serious weight training, one hour cardio on the ellipticals, and one hour weight training. Every day 3/4 times a week.

And now a few years later I've found myself doing the standard 20 minutes cardio and an hour minimum of strength training. It was such a big difference to my life the weight loss. With this new confidence of basically becoming a new person, I got a girlfriend (we're not together any more but it's all good) some friends were upset that I 'changed' which I did but they were fine with it in the end and it meant I could live much longer than I would of if I carried on the way I did.

TL;DR It's all about the small changes over a long time. You NEED to start thinking in the long term, even while exercising. And drive yourself, notice the differences, keep going.

Your first picture has a clue to your problem. Unless you're stocking shelves, there is no reason to be in that part of the grocery store or to have pop in your shopping cart.

Sure calories make all the difference but what you eat drives how much you eat and how your body responds.

You need to completely revamp how you eat. Keto may provide benefits, but most of the benefits comes from kicking teh junk food habit. You also need to get over this aversion to vegetables.

Read "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolfe. There are other good books and I wrote a book list for /r/paleo but I don't think it exists anymore. Check their FAQ and write to me after you've read a couple foundational type books on the subject.

Cut your hair and shave, that much hair is going to slow you down, think about it in terms of drying etc. Water/coffee/green tea are your only drinks from now on. Start with long walks, try incorporating jogging after a while, and attempt to do some squats/push ups/pull ups (negative pull ups for a start), this is stuff you can do at home with hardly any gear. Eat slower, you'll be surprised how much food can fill you.

all my obese friends from florida started losing weight rather quickly by simply walking more, drinking more water, and eating less. It was a noticeable difference in a week, though results vary of course. Walk at least a mile every day.

Once you get used to the added activity and reduced food intake, more strenuous activity should be significantly easier. Also, just stop eating things with added sugar. fruits and stuff are fine, but stop with soda and pretty much any drink that isn't water. Juice has a lot of sugar in it. you'll feel like a million bucks once you reduce your sugar intake and increase your water intake. of course balance that out with some other foods, but it really doesn't matter what you eat at this point, just reduce.

I don't have a lot of advice but I'm happy for you man, once you realize that you have control over your own body your world will change. The first thing to go might be that cart full of Mountain Dew!

While exercise is important, like others have said it is really as simple as cutting your calories at this point. I lost 60 pounds without even realizing it just due to unintentional dietary changes (moved overseas). You need to throw out everything you think about eating, and learn again.

Not to say you shouldn't exercise, but don't get too stressed about weights and running and whatever. The biggest thing is losing fat

A lot of commenters here are saying drink water instead of soda. I have another life hack that you should do IN ADDITION (to drinking water instead of soda).

Get an mp3 player, put at least 60 minutes of your favorite songs on it. Every day go for a walk outside or in a park/etc listening to your favorite songs. It will really relax you. It might even become the favorite part of your day.

After you get a little healthier, you can upgrade to jogging for 20 minutes (and then walking the rest).

Cardio (running, jumping) is great for fat-burning. You don't even need to focus on a specific area to burn fat, your body automatically starts burning fat all over the body.

Muscle gain happens from stuff like push-ups, pull-ups and weights. With weights, if you want a more bulky look, you'll do less reps (amount of times you lift the weight in a set) per set.

If you want to work out without having to create a routine, consider trying a home fitness program. A good one is p90x. It improves every aspect of the body (flexibilty, endurance and strength) and you can do the exercises at your own pace. Starting out or have a bad day? Do the modified move and/or less reps. Feeling great? Do the advanced move and/or shoot for more reps.

Good luck man. It's tough getting into the cycle of living healthier but you'll feel so much better when you make it.

I am really proud of you, anonymous Internet friend. It takes a lot of courage to look at yourself honestly, especially on days when you feel too tired to even think about the colossal challenge ahead.

Other people can give much better dietary and exercise advice. My only advice is to find ways to stay motivated and strong mentally, and have some fun, because determination isn't always consistent (for me at least). I am not obese but exercise helps with my depression, though I struggle to stay motivated.

You could post reminders of your (specific, concrete, deadline-d) goals on the fridge and your bathroom mirror. Keep written track of your progress. Share your goals with supportive friends or family members. Find ways to celebrate every milestone - and celebrations don't always mean cake. ;) Do you enjoy walking outside? A nice pair of headphones, some new music to listen to, new sports top or jacket are some things I reward myself with. Find podcasts you enjoy and the time will fly faster. Comedy is good! Is there a sport or other physical activity you enjoy or have always wanted to try? Joining a casual group or taking a class a few times a week can keep you accountable and force you to get out and moving even when you don't feel like it. Do you like animals? You could look into walking dogs for your local shelter. Dogs are awesome cause they always seem happy with life and exercise but never make me feel judged when I'm having a bad day and look or feel like shit.

What got me fired up was the heart attack of a friend of mine. He's 44, and was severely obese. Shortly after his heart attack, I said "fuck it," bought a Nike fuel band to help track my caloric expenditure, hopped on a treadmill 6 days a week doing inclines and runs, and haven't looked back. 10 months later, I am down 53 pounds-205 to 152. I'm 5'4", 39 years old, and have never felt better.

I had a coworker that weighed close to 400 lbs close to a year ago. He started eating Lean Cuisine for lunch everyday, stopped drinking alcohol, and did a round of P90X every night after work. He weighs less than me now (~175 lbs). If you have the discipline and drive to stick with it, you can do anything. The hardest part is staying with the program. Good luck buddy, it can be done!

I'm going to second the top rated post here in saying that you should replace every beverage you drink with (cold, if possible) water.

Water is great for you and I don't think I'd be wrong in saying you don't get enough of it, you'll be surprised just how much weight you might lose by drinking enough water for a few weeks, your body is probably retaining water right now which really adds to the "fat" look.

If you lose this weight, you'll have the kind of legs that anyone on this subreddit would kill for. They will be monstrous. Try and let that motivate you. You'll have quads on quads on quads.

I can't stress the importance of a healthy diet when trying to lose weight. Even if you don't start exercising at all you will lose weight really fast if you eat right. If you don't change your diet and simply start exercising you'll probably see very slow results and get frustrated.

If you can't eat veggies I highly suggest getting a blender and making smoothies. Blend up spinach, kale, cilantro, etc. Then add some fruit, but don't go overboard. If you need sweetener then add some Stevia at first, but try to cut down as quickly as possible because sweet foods will make you crave other sweets (soda and candy). Either way vegetables are nutrient rich and essential for a healthy balanced diet. You need to add them in somewhere.

Here is a small list of food items that I recommend.

Almond Milk

Almonds

Avocados

Carrots

Celery

Chicken

Eggs

Cottage Cheese

Fish

Brown Rice

Beans

Protein Shakes

I highly recommend browsing /r/fitmeals and finding recipes that are parallel with your goals.

You need to start avoiding carbs where possible (bread, noodles, cereal, buns, etc.) To lose weight you need to have a medium fat, high protein, and low carb diet.

Portioning is also a massive factor. You need to start changing your perception of food from pleasure to sustenance; energy for your body to use throughout the day. I'd start limiting yourself to 2000 calories a day and try to cut that down to about 1500 and you should be fine.

Remember that this should be a life-long change. Not something you do for a few weeks and go back to how you were previously eating. Simply put you need to let that go and change. If you are unhappy and food is the reason then you need to change now instead of letting the cycle of unhappiness perpetuate itself.

I wish you all the luck in the world and if you ever need to chat feel free to PM me.

I'll leave you with my favorite quote.

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering; for he is both the marble and the sculptor."

A small comment on your aversion to vegetables - I used to feel the same way. But as you start to cut out things like sugar and fast food you will start to crave them less and crave healthy foods more. When I go to the gym now I feel like I have so much more energy if the foods I ate that day were healthy and nutritious foods, like fruits and veggies and protein, as opposed to say donuts which make me feel sluggish. I think, at least for me, over time I started to crave the foods that made me feel healthy and energetic more and more. Just make small changes like cutting out soda and all the chips and count your calories, it doesn't have to be all at once.

The trick with fruits and vegetables is to keep trying them. Don't make yourself sit and work through a whole bag of baby carrots if you think they're gross, but try to eat one bite of carrot fairly often. Once you've tried it half a dozen times, it won't seem so bad, and once you've tried it a dozen times, you may even like it. Try lots of different fruits and veggies, too, maybe there's something out there that's closer to your current tastes and will be easier to eat.

If fruits are easier right now, go ahead and eat a ton of fruit, it's got a lot of fiber in it and it'll be a big improvement over chicken nuggets! You really do need fruit and veg in your diet, the fiber will make you feel fuller longer and if you turn out to be diabetic it's really helpful in controlling blood sugar, and then there's the vitamins and other micronutrients in them. Keep working away at it and trying things out and eventually you will develop a taste for them!

Take /u/StillABusta up on his suggestion of /r/LoseIt. The motivation there is fantastic, and they're a very supportive group.

/u/man_risk suggested www.myfitnesspal.com. It's a great tool to help you lose weight. Even if you just use it for counting calories to see what your daily intake really is, it's worth using for just that.

I don't have much to contribute in the way of exercise, because I think it's been covered, but check out /r/EatCheapAndHealthy for recipe ideas and pick out a few that you like. I started having to cook for myself a couple months ago and I was freaking out at first, but I've gotten some great ideas off of there. When planning your meals, just always try to include a vegetable with every meal in some way, whether it be as part of the dish or a side.

Additional tip: oven-roasting makes most vegetables taste better :) Last night, I took a bag of pre-washed broccoli and tossed it with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt. Roasted it at 375F for 25 minutes on a baking sheet.

If you don't have access to an oven, that last bit is a moot point, I suppose, but seasoning is a big help in making vegetables more palatable for people at first (but please don't slather everything in ranch!) Anyways, check out the subreddit I mentioned. There are quite a few posts from people that have similar situations to yours, and the folks there are really friendly.

You can only control one thing: this minute. It sounds like a cliche, but focus on that. Don't worry about what you will or will not do in the future, what you'll eat or won't eat, or whether or not you'll be successful. Be successful RIGHT NOW, literally, this moment.

Set realistic goals and timelines. Start with walking 30 mins a day, then mix in a little jogging. Download podcasts and listen to them while you're doing it. I run 5k every day and listen to the Napoleon 101 podcast, Joe Rogan's podcast, or something on ancient Rome. Options are endless.

Others can offer food advice, but cut out soft drinks. They're useless: what do they do for you? Make food work for you, instead of you doing things for the food reward.

I started out the same place as you and ended up losing 150 pounds over 12ish months.

The first few weeks I would just walk on the treadmill, and I tracked the food I ate. I slowly progressed to doing 40 minutes of the stationary bike (I would watched episodes of Battlestar Galactica, because I had never watched the show before and it would go by super quickly.)

I would only eat packaged food that I knew exactly how many calories it contained, and I only ate about 1500 calories a day. I ended up losing about 10-15 pounds a month for a few months doing just this.

I cut out all candy and alcohol, but you don't really have to do that. As long as you track the food and don't eat cookies, candy and junk on top of normal meals. If you eat that stuff you'll have to take calories out of your other meals to make up for it.

Never reward yourself with food from working out. If you run a 5k and end up eating 2 chipotle burritos afterwards, you're not actually helping yourself.

Fitness above all is a lifestyle. If I were you in addition to the changes in diet and exercise I'd cut the hair off as a commitment to life changing attitude. No more hiding behind long hair or double shirts. The point is to come out of your comfort zone that you have developed over the years. Its natural to want to cover your body up when you arent proud of it but its better to face the problem and face the severity of it head on. Weight yourself regularly, take pictures of your progress, use myfitnesspal to calculate and track everything you eat.
Also mention your intentions of getting healthy to friends and family it makes you feel accountable to your resolution and keep you from giving up.
Lastly see a doctor about your diabetes and overall checkup asap. Harboring such medical conditions only give rise to other problems. And if you believe them to be true when they might not be it gives you a mental excuse to cheat on the new lifestyle you want to build.
Good luck

Yea dont worry about changing everything instantly, baby steps, babysteps is the only way you can change your lifestyle without some drastic tramatizing event.

When I started going to the gym I told myself I'd go 3 times a week, but I ended up only motivating myself to go once a week. And I got discouraged, but I knew once a week was better then not at all. So after I went once a week for a month or two It was easier to go twice a week. After that I reached my goal of 3 times a week.

all you have to do is be a better person than the person you were yesterday. its that simple. if you can keep that up then what you are capable of achieving is up to you. rome wasnt built in one day, it was built everyday. so dont hang yourself up on achieving the perfect vision of yourself, but only improving on who you are day by day.

There is so much familiar about this post. You remind me of my father. He had basically the same stats you have- but at the age of 38. On the day I was born, he read a pamphlet on diabetes and talked to a doctor on a whim. I'm the fourth child in my family, and I imagine there was some talk about living longer for the kids, and that was when he changed his life. I just wanted to give you a look into the future of success- I'm 23 now, and my dad is probably the healthiest person I know. He goes running in the parks near us, lifts weights, uses an elliptical, all sorts of things. He changed the way he eats, and he watches his blood sugar. He slipped on a patch of ice a couple years ago, and had to have knee surgery- and he's running again now. His determination inspires me, and it's what I hope for you.

so much has been said already, theres not a lot i can add that doesn't sound repetitive. but know that you will lose motivation many, many times throughout your journey. it is in these times that you will define your character and success. have both big picture/ long term goals as well as short term, attainable goals. you need both to help bring yourself along.

also, will-power is just like a muscle. you have to train it slowly and it will start to be easier to deny yourself things you think you want. if you try to bench press 300 pounds day 1 you will hurt yourself, same with trying to do major lifestyle changes all at once.

also set certain rules for yourself that you almost never break, the fewer times you break it, the better. for example, never take the elevator inside of the first 3 stories. never take the escalator if there is a stair option. no soda and only zero-calorie energy drinks. drink your coffee black. things like this will help reduce empty calorie intake and keep you slightly more active.

also, you can never, ever "earn" junk food. "i walked 2 miles today, i think i earned myself a big mac". ABSOLUTELY NOT! this will more than undermine your attempts to lose weight, but its part of the reason bigger people complain about never seeing any results from the gym.

sorry for the wall of text, but i just can't help myself sometimes. GOOD LUCK!

I have some advice for improving your diet: cook your own food. If you don't already, start. Even just two meals a day like breakfast and lunch. Being responsible for what ingredients go into your food will make all the difference in the world. Choose simple, whole ingredients and you cannot fail. Start adding vegetables slowly, find one dish with vegetables you like and see where you go from there. You dont need to eat salads but you will feel so much better when you are getting the nutrients your body needs by eating a variety of foods.

Add in a little exercise, add in some healthy foods slowly. When you're not used to eating vegetables, you are right, it does take some getting used to! But there are ways of making them tasty and more palatable and in time you will find you actually crave them!

Start with naturally sweet vegetables - sweet potatoes, carrots & parsnips are a good option. Roast them in small chunks in a 400 degree oven (with a little olive oil), tossing/stirring occasionally until soft and caramelized. If that doesn't taste so bad (and I swear it won't! Roasting brings out the sugars in vegetables!), slowly try roasting other veggies using the same method - potatoes, brussels sprouts, bell peppers, zucchini, even kale are all great roasted. You don't want to rely on only cooked vegetables but it's a good starting place for someone who does not like them.

Another option is making smoothies - make a smoothie of fruit, maybe a banana and an apple with some almond milk (or yogurt, whatever you use) and throw in a green leaf. If that is palatable, throw in an extra leaf the next time you make it and so on. Eventually, you'll be eating smoothies with more veggies than fruit in them.

Also, look for inspiration anywhere you can get it! If you watch TV, look for shows like A&E's "Heavy", My 600 lb Life (I forget what network), MTV's "I Used to be Fat", the movies "Fat Sick & Nearly Dead", Food Matters, Food Inc etc. Seeing other people make major life changes (along with their struggles along the way) will help motivate you, at least, it helps me!

Your taste buds will change over time. Reduce the amount of sugar and processed food in your diet and you will start craving healthier options. You can do this!!!!

I used to hate eating olives, strawberries, and other types of fruit and vegetables. It was either the taste or the texture that put me off. When I was was in my early 20s I started bar tending. Olives are always behind the bar, so I decided to eat one a week until I got used to it. So far it has worked and I am no longer a picky eater (I eat everything these days). The last thing I am trying to get used to is eating citrus fruit. I love the taste I just can stand the texture of it. The pulp never breaks down and I feel like I just have to swallow it whole, soon though real soon, I will be eating an orange. I hope this helps and best of luck to you. The best thing to do is just to keep at it and not to get discouraged.

I don't know if you'll see this comment with how popular this post is, but hopefully you do. Get a hair cut! A lot of motivation comes from being happy with a small change you make. I think a haircut will make you feel better about yourself and put you in the right direction!

IDespiseYourIcon, There are people here who will give you better advice than I could. All I want to say is you are young and you can change if you really want to, and it sounds like you do. I wish you all the best.

I was a lot like you a few years ago man. The biggest thing that I did when I changed my lifestyle, I cut my hair and shaved. Its not going to affect you physically, but mentally it will be a reminder of what you are trying to do, every single day.

Plus, you will look thinner with shorter hair and a shaved beard.

Only do this if you really want to. It really did help me out a lot, as a constant reminder that I wanted to change.

5'7 former 205 pound fatass over here. Dropped to about 150. 55 pounds in about 6-9 months. Did it during a summer in college and part of that fall and winter. The following is what I did when I was tired of being fat at age 20 and decided to do something.

How much should I exercise? Every day? Is that too much for starting out?

Losing weight is mostly diet. Exercise is great, but go look up how long you'd have to run to burn off 100 calories. Now realize how quickly you can chow down 100 calories and still be starving. I went and got a cheap ass gym membership. $10 a month, month to month. No showers, pools, saunas, I was there just for the treadmill and a few of the weights. Plus there's a bit of "I'm paying for it, I better not let that money go to waste" incentive. It was mostly running. Not even that much mind you. 30 minutes a day, maybe 3-5 times a week. More like 3. Weights, situps, pushups whenever I was bored and not doing anything. You know, when you're watching TV? You can watch TV and do that at the same time. You don't have to bust out 30 at a time, just get moving. (Thanks Michelle Obama!) Waiting for your queue in League of Legends? Do some curls. Waiting for your food to finish cooking? Situps. Just be moving as often as you can.

You're 18, probably going to college. Walk whenever you can. To classes, to a nearby grocery store. I lived within 1.5 miles of a Trader Joe's. I would walk there, grab a few groceries, walk back. 30 minutes to get there, 30 minutes to get back. Yes it takes some time, but hey, you get some exercise, some fresh food, and you waste less because you're not buy 3 weeks worth of shit at once. Take the stairs whenever you can. Make a habit of taking a walk after meals, 15-20 minutes. Get a standing desk and stop sitting so much.

It should be clear now that none of the exercise I did was particularly strenuous. It's a lot of walking, a lot of stairs, and occasionally some running. Of course none of this matters at all unless you make a dietary change. It's just part of your new active lifestyle.

What do I eat? This one is the hardest part for me. I'm willing to put in the physical effort associated with going to the gym, but my tastebuds have different ideas. I cannot physically eat lettuce/tomato/carrots basically any and all vegetables, my mouth just cannot stomach the texture and the taste, it's abhorrent. I want to eat it, but I can't, my mind and tastebuds are somehow still in 10 year old chicken nugget mode. How do I break free? Do I NEED to eat lettuce/tomato and all of the vegetables? What is keto? Will that be better for a larger person like myself?

I did an uneducated version of keto myself. I didn't cut the carbs as harshly as a lot of keto guides recommend. I'm Asian. Hard to cut out rice and noodles cold turkey, especially when you see your parents often. But I cut back on carbs for sure. Read every fucking nutrition label. You give yourself no benefit of the doubt. When it says "contains 3 servings, 1 serving: 100calories" and you eat an amount you think might be 1/3 of the box, you say 1/2. People are notorious for underestimating how much they consume and overestimating how much exercise they do. Let me say again, you get no benefit of the doubt. Be fucking harsh with yourself.

Keep a log. You can use a smartphone or a journal, doesn't matter. Just keep track of everything you eat. And like I said, be harsh. MyFitnessPal has an iOS and Android app that is very helpful.

You can continue eating all the chicken nuggets you want as long as you exercise strict portion control and keep those calories in check. Of course you need a certain amount of vegetables to get vitamins and fiber and other nutrients that can't readily be found in junk food, that's always been true. Not for losing weight, but just because your body needs it to function.

Drink more water. Drink a ton of water. Stop drinking sugar. It's so easy to overload on sugar and calories with a few cans of soda or juice a day. It's nuts. Just stop. That Starbucks coffee isn't any better either. Stop it. Oh and beer. Holy shit stop drinking beer, or alcohol period. But if you must drink, go with not beer.

If you can, avoid restaurants. They make it so hard to stay on track. Everything smells and looks good, you have no nutrition label to look at, and if they bring out a lot of food, it's hard to have the willpower to control yourself. My mom was born right after the Korean war. I was praised for eating. That shit doesn't really go away. So control it in another way. Avoid the situation altogether.

Speaking of avoiding bad situations. When you go grocery shopping, stop buying garbage. Stop buying snacks, desserts. If I buy something, I'm going to eat it. And probably all at once. I find it very hard to control myself after it's been bought. On the other hand, at the store, I find it way too easy to just not buy it at all. I see a donut at the store and I don't give a fuuuuck. I see a donut at home and I must eat that thing now even if I'm not hungry. Just don't buy it. If you have snacks, you're going to snack between meals, even if you aren't actually hungry.

First of all, congrats in this first step! I'll try to tackle your questions one by one. I know everyone has done that already too, but figure the more opinions, the better you're off, right?

Actually, second thing, see a doctor. If you're questioning that diabetes at all, see a doctor. Less than two months ago I lost a dear family member from undiagnosed diabetes, and he had a diabetic crash while having another, also undiagnosed, issue. The two were treatable, but not while in a diabetic crash. He passed away just a few days later. Please see a doctor.

How much should I exercise? Every day? Is that too much for starting out?

Basically, more than what you're doing. One day is better than what you're doing, and that's a start. 5 days is awesome, but be realistic. Can you suddenly change your life and work out so frequently? You'll likely burn out. You're also new to working out so your body will basically go "WTF man, WTF are you doing to me?" for a while, making working out too frequently difficult. It's OK to start slow.

What should I exercise for fat-burning and some muscle gain? Treadmil? The bars with the weights on the end? I really am lost.

The dreaded fat burning vs muscle gain exercises. Here's the secret: you burn fat by eating less calories than you use. It doesn't matter if you run, lift weights, or sit on your ass. If you eat less, you'll burn fat.

As for gaining muscle, if you use those muscles (lift weights) and eat in excess, you'll gain muscle. But you'll gain fat too. I'm guessing this isn't really what you're looking for now.

That said, there's a lot of discussion on gaining muscle while losing weight, and it's not something I follow closely so I can't comment on that. But, really, you're just looking for that caloric deficit. That's awesome. It means do whatever you want. Like the treadmill? Go for it. Too boring, so you want to lift? Awesome. Still hate it, but like dancing? Have fun!

Basically, go have fun. Do what you like. Just stay in a caloric deficit and you'll burn fat.

What do I eat? This one is the hardest part for me. I'm willing to put in the physical effort associated with going to the gym, but my tastebuds have different ideas. I cannot physically eat lettuce/tomato/carrots basically any and all vegetables, my mouth just cannot stomach the texture and the taste, it's abhorrent. I want to eat it, but I can't, my mind and tastebuds are somehow still in 10 year old chicken nugget mode. How do I break free? Do I NEED to eat lettuce/tomato and all of the vegetables? What is keto? Will that be better for a larger person like myself?

So, this isn't good advice, but, technically you can lose weight on nothing but oreo cookies. Like I said above, you just need to be in a caloric deficit. But that's not healthy, and you'll likely crave hardcore for more food to the point you'll break that delicious oreo diet and binge, eating too many calories.

Just like you should start slowly with exercise, do the same with your diet. Make some changes. Don't expect to eat perfectly starting tomorrow for the next 4 months. That's not realistic. Maybe start with your breakfast, perhaps replace two slices of bread with a bowl of fruit. Small change, less calories, and more nutritious.

If you want to follow a diet plan, everyone here has different recommendations. Some people love IF (eating only at certain times), keto, calorie counting, etc. What works for one person is hell for another. Experiment. The best diet is what works for you and something that is maintainable for you, not what works for someone else.

As for the dreaded veggies, again, baby steps. Look up tricks for what parents do for kids (I don't mean this in a condescending way, but rather this is also a common problem for kids). Hide your veggies. When you have pasta for dinner, add some peas or mushrooms to that sauce and blend it so you don't even notice the texture.

For more advice: Check in to this or other forums with updates. Everyone's rooting for each other. Check back in regardless of your progress. Good luck, and have fun with it!

Funny, when I started the gym 2 years ago I was near on exactly in your state. I was 6" 1', 22 stone and severely depressed about my body image. Right now I'm sitting at roughly 14 and a half stone and in the best shape of my life, so if you ever wake up one day and feel like giving up, don't. Seriously, just don't.

It's taken me 2 years to get to where I am, and I'm still not finished because there isn't really a finish, it's a lifestyle change.

First of all, start lifting weights. When I started out, I got tied up with doing cardio and it got me nowhere. Begin with simple stuff, just look online and do some basic and simple isolation movements to gain some gym confidence. As you become more confident get a proper compound movement program like 5x5 or one of those, there's plenty out there. Weight lifting will make your stronger, more confident and will help you retain the muscle you have hiding underneath.

Make it your hobby, the reason I've been able to stick to it for so long is simply because I got myself involved in it. Research, learn, appreciate hard work and reap the rewards when they come. Just keep in the back of your mind that if you don't start now, then this time next year you'll be kicking yourself and wishing you had done so. You'll be doing future you a massive favour.

I don't think I've included everything, honestly much of the information you need can be found and I urge you to go out and find it for yourself. Asking all the questions is a great start, but finding your own way is equally as important. Understanding what to do and why you need to do it is what will see you through.

I wouldn't begin by going for long walks/jogs, you'll be doing them because you feel you have to (I know I've tried it). Personally I'd leave the jogging until you've dropped a bit of weight, and stick to walking to places you need to get to (shops, friends etc). Your best start would be to track your calories (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) and from there work out how many calories you need to eat to lose about 2lbs a week (something like http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/).

The above is probably poorly worded, but if you need to speak to someone who has been in your position and come through, then please please please don't hesitate to PM me and have a chat, I know exactly how it feels.

You've had so many helpful comments so far. There are just a couple of things I'd like to add:

Firstly, diet and activity levels are the strongest indicators of health - not weight. Keep that in mind if weight loss slows down or stalls for a while. It's inevitable that it will, human bodies don't progress in linear fashion - you'll have weeks where weight falls off, and other weeks where it seems like nothing you do makes a difference. In those weeks, remember that eating well and moving around are still making you healthier, even if the scale doesn't move for a while.

Weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. Okay, I made those figures up. But it's more about diet initially than exercise. If your knees aren't coping with walking to start with, that's okay - focus on your diet for a while. Don't stop being as active as you can reasonably be, but if the activity part isn't working for you, remember that the diet part is even more important. It's not about doing everything 100% of the time, it's about doing what you can as well as you can.

Definitely get to a doctor and talk about diabetes. I know everyone else has said that already, but I'm repeating it because it's just that important. Once you've done that, have a think about the dietary changes you're going to make. I absolutely recommend cutting out sugary drinks - it's not just that they're seriously high in calories, it's that they're all sugar calories.

I lost 26kg last year following a ketogenic diet. You can have a look at /r/keto if you're interested. People on Reddit seem to be a bit fanatical about keto (either for or against), but don't let that sway you either way. The thing about keto which might interest you is that most people who eat a ketogenic diet don't tend to feel hungry. When I'm losing weight, I find that if I'm feeling hungry and deprived, everything sucks and everything is hard. You know? I don't follow a ketogenic diet any more - I find I need more carbs than that to sustain my current levels of physical activity - but when I was losing weight that feeling of satiety meant a lot to me and made the process easier to manage.

Most of all... I want you to know that this is a really, really good thing you're doing. And you're doing it for great reasons. When you start to feel good physically, you'll realise just how much you put up with for so long. It's mind-blowing. I promise you, life will get so much easier. The small revelations of everyday tasks, where out of the blue you think, hey, this is easy now! are a surprisingly large reward. For me it was little things like realising finding a park at a shopping centre was easy because I didn't care where I parked - no hunting for a spot near the door. Or walking across the CBD instead of waiting 20 minutes for a bus, because it was just quicker and easier to do it that way.

If you're worried about being Diabetic I really urge you to get that sorted, ASAP. My friend has diabetes and there are so many problems, like dying in your sleep O:

Anyway, go get that sorted.

Second tip, diet. I adore Keto, seriously its just the bees knees of a diet. Eating lots of fat really helps me not eat much food, bacon, cheese, cream etc. Its not a hard diet, not like some. I don't feel weak or lathargic, and imo thats important.

Third, diet counts for 80% of your weight. Cut out the bad foods and you'll get there in no time. Drink plenty of water and find a sports you enjoy. Walking jogging sounds okay but do you really enjoy that? If not, go learn something fun, boxing or martial arts, anything that will get you out, give you that competition you need ( if you're anything like typical gamers ).

Take it day by day, don't be overwhelmed, and give yourself non-food treats when you hit goals. Clothes, games, etc.

I would also say go to the Male fashion advice forum, for a new confidence you need to start feeling good, wearing clothes that make you feel that good is incredibly important!

I'm by no means an exercise guru, but one thing being in the Army has taught me is that water tastes just as good as soda once you start drinking it and cut out the soda.

I came across something once that said one can of soda a day for a year equates to ~10 pounds of fat. So dropping the sugary sodas (as hard as it is) will do you a lot of good just doing that alone. Everything else you are going to do from eating healthier to exercising will benefit from dropping all that sugar intake.

Best of luck to you man; I'm proud of you for taking this huge step to try to better yourself and get healthier.